Review

The Sony Xperia Ion is now official as Sony Philippines launched the 4.6-inch brother of their Sony Xperia S last Wednesday along with the Sony Xperia Neo L.

It’s almost like the Sony Xperia S in terms of specs and power but with two main differences aside from its screen size. One is a microSD slot and second, is its LTE support. A thing of note though, this phone won’t work in this country’s LTE due to the different LTE frequency it supports. It will still support HSPA+ though which is why Sony decided to bring it here, and you can also use it with AT&T’s LTE if you decide to bring it to the US.

Rounding up the feature list, you will get an HD 4.6-inch display with Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine, dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage with the aforementioned microSD slot, and a 12-megapixel camera using Sony’s Exmor R lens for mobile. It also runs on Android Gingerbread but Sony is expecting the Ice Cream Sandwich update next month.

This phone is not only slightly bigger than the Xperia S but also slightly heavier due to the combination of high-quality plastic and metal portions on its body. It also lacks the transparent strip that gives the Xperia S, P, and U the striking trait of a Sony NXT phone. Anyway, the Xperia Ion is still one good-looking phone that feels solid to use.

The Sony Xperia Iion will be available starting July 21 with a suggested retail price of Php29,990, a bit pricey in my opinion when you can already get quality quad-core Android phones for less.